Authors: Justina Robson
any sedative effect when he came to. She needed him to tell her what to do next, since her human-med
skills, involving metal as they did, possibly were not
doing him an awful lot
of good, although perhaps
saving his life would smooth things over on that front.
As a chaotic pattern established itself in his heart Lila cautiously and somewhat cheekily took the
chance to examine his physiology much more closely. If anyone asked her she would say it was for
Otopia's files. In spite of pleas to the contrary Alfheim had not divulged most of its medical knowledge to
Otopia, nor the bulk of its magical expertise; all of these things were protected under weapons-class
security restric-tions. It
was one of the features of that
treaty Lila had gone in to witness as a diplomat
years ago. But
she wanted to know from genuine
curiosity too. She wondered greatly, in her surgeon's mind, what
kind of medicine they had and how their
bodies differed from those of humans
.
Not
so much in some ways: she found all the organs to be just
about the same in relative size and position though they were, with respect to the physiology of their
muscles and tendons, superhuman.
But
there was a significant
difference. Elves had a lot
more neural clusters surrounding their major
organs and even in their muscles, as though their brain was distributed more fully throughout their bodies
than human nervous systems, which had their secondary centres around the heart and gut alone. And she
noticed, as she explored this with soundwaves, that the progress of her survey created a reaction in the
ECG: Dar's heart responded to the frequencies.
Working on intuition she placed four more sensors on his head and took a scan of his brain activity.
That reacted too, even though he wasn't conscious
.
The response was what she would generally consider
not good
.
Under her exploration the signals of all of his various neural sites became dissonant
.
His heart
juddered.
Lila stopped. She examined her information and then placed her hands back on Dar, this time
transmitting electrical impulses targeting specific clusters, copying what she calculated to be their normal
function frequencies, in the hope that
she could induce a state of harmony
.
It
worked beautifully, and she
finally had a good reason to understand why elves were so susceptible to fluctuations in their surrounding
electromagnetic fields, and to sound itself, as she restored Dar to a synchronous neural state: everything
working together
.
A few seconds later his eyes fluttered open
.
Lila had seen people master pain with difficulty and also succumb to it
without
shame
.
Dar's eyes
flashed wide as it
hit
him, and then he paused, and in that pause Lila saw a change in his face moving
instantly to self-possession. His
andalune
rose at
the same moment
and her sensors slid off him in a blurt
of static as his skin rejected them. She waited, poised to hold him down if she had to, in order to
prevent him yanking the drains out, but he didn't try to move. He drew a breath through his teeth and one
of his eyebrows moved up in surprise that
it
was so easy.
'Be still,' she said. 'You're not
out
of the woods yet.'
He almost smiled at her weak humour.
'Your arms are broken,' she told him. 'But you probably knew that. Your heart and lungs were full of
blood. I had to take it out. That's what
you can hear dripping on the floor
.
The hiss is the pumping system.' She didn't
say that
he'd lost
a great
deal of blood, now mostly around her knees, and that she didn't know how much more he could lose.
"The pain is not as bad,' Dar said quietly. 'You must
set
my arms.'
'I did that when I put them down. Clean breaks. They'll be all right. But
they aren't
splinted yet. I can't
do that, because . . .' And she held up her right
arm to show him that
they were joined. 'As soon as I
can, I'll take them out.'
Dar closed his eyes. He was quite different
looking to Zal, although until recently all elves had had a
kind of sameyness for Lila, mostly based on ears (pointy, long), hair (lots of it, long) and expression
(aloof, controlled, pole-up-the-ass). There was also some stuff about decor-ation, manners and couture
which had seemed almost
indistinguish-able from human gay culture, if less camp. Now she felt
that her
estimation of them revealed much more about her than it did about them, and that it did not present a
flattering portrait
of her at
all.
She found also that, since Dar had been at
her mercy, she no longer hated his face. It was an extreme
face of a kind she considered ultra-elven, as though it
had been stretched upwards from its strong, slightly
squared chin and the tip of his nose, so that
the lines of the cheekbones and the features were elongated
and slanted: the kind of thing that
might
happen after one too many facelifts. It gave his mouth at
rest
a
strange almost-smile, which is what she had always thought of as a smirk, but now saw was only the way
his face was made. Zal's face was less exaggerated, with flatter brows and a more squared appearance,
although he had the same large eyes that
Dar did and the same long, thick eyelashes, equally dark. You
could see a species resemblance, but
Dar had dark brown hair and his eyes were intense and nearly
black. His skin also had a peculiar quality that Zal's did not. Now that she looked closely he seemed
much darker than she remembered, not tanned like a human but as if he stood in deep shadow. She
didn't think it
was an effect
of his condition.
Lila wondered if Zal were a bleach blond.
Dar opened his eyes again. 'Maybe you would consider us even, now.'
'No, not nearly,' Lila told him amiably. 'Hello: half my body missing for ever.'
"The new one seems to be working out
for you,' he rasped. 'And to my advantage. I am very
impressed.'
'Ah, come on, make me not want to rip this out and leave you to rot,' she said, without
any great
anger, but
some irritation that he could lie there half dead and still successfully bait
her.
'Your honour is great,' he said. 'I thank you.'
'Go me,' Lila said. 'How do I get
your lot
to come over here and fix you better?'
'I don't think that's a good idea,' he whispered, trying to lift his head and then deciding quickly against
it. 'Also, we need to move soon.'
'What are you talking about? Gwil told me . . .'
'I do not trust Gwil, whatever she told you,' he said. 'And I have no idea who in the Jayon Daga is with
or against me.'
'You as in just you?' Lila asked.
'No, us as in just us.' He smiled a little. 'But all the same, better they not
come here and find you. Some
of them may be my allies, but others will not
be, and we can show no brotherhood to their faces, or else
our efforts to mitigate their ill-notions will all be wasted in the discovery.'
Lila admired the fact
that
he could get a sentence like that out with only one functional lung. She didn't
know what
he meant but it seemed to boil down to the fact
that they weren't going to get reinforcements.
'So what, we're going in against the big bad to save Zal from immortal torment with me carrying you on
your deathbed?'
'No,' Dar said. He paused for a minute, to breathe. 'You will help me get
better more quickly.'
'Oh, I don't
know,' Lila objected. 'You're in serious trouble with your chest. Even if it's all fine when I
take these drains out
you can't
go anywhere or do anything useful for months
.
Your bones are pretty
much shattered.'
'Yes, I can hear that,' he said. 'But this is not Otopia. And we have our own technologies for getting
over things like this in a hurry, if we have to.'
'Teleport it
on over then,' she said.
'I was rather thinking you could drag us both across to that cabinet where you will find our medical
supplies.'
'Typical man,' Lila snorted. She was glad she had put him on the closest of the cots. 'Hold on then.
This is going to be unpleasant for you.'
'No doubt that will please you,' he said.
She frowned. 'Actually it won't. How about that for a turn-up for the books?' She pushed the bed and
it skidded over the unpolished floor
1 with only a slight vibration and
bump. Nonetheless Dar hissed horribly
and almost
immediately passed out. Warm blood splashed on her legs.
She adjusted the drain tubes so that she could move around and went
to open the cabinet
but
the doors would not
budge to her hands.
When he woke up for the second time she said, 'I'm going to have to up your painkillers.'
'No,' he said. "There will be something better in there for me.'
She held up one hand, 'Not
for me though. How do you get
in?'
'Take my hand and touch the door with it,' he suggested.
Lila didn't
argue or make any more suggestions. She took hold of his damaged upper arm in her
left hand and fixed the bones in place with a power-assisted grip, so tight it made him cry out. Then
she moved his arm with her right hand. As soon as his skin made contact with the door, it
opened.
'It
will be fine now,' he said as she replaced his arm on the bed.
'Hope so.' She began taking things out - bark boxes and other, manifestly unhygienic-looking
containers. Although they were all remarkably similar, each was made from a variety of materials,
with a different fold and unique ties. Dar told her to look for something in autumn beech leaves with
a linen tie. Lila found and opened it. Inside were slender bamboo tubes, sealed with wax. She
opened one and ultra-fine needles of crystal fell out into her hand. They were so delic-ate they
could only have grown like that, over extreme lengths of time. 'Acupuncture,' she said after a
second's thought
.
'Yes,' Dar said
.
'It's good you are familiar with the technique
.
The meridians . . .' He coughed and
momentarily passed out, recovering a second or two later.
T know where they are,' she said confidently. T sneaked a peek while you weren't looking.'
'With what?' he rasped.
'Ultrasound,' she said. 'And I can look again to be sure.'
"That explains it,' he whispered, his voice bubbling slightly. Lila checked the drains. The heart had
stabilised, but his lung trauma was still leaky. Drops of vivid scarlet
thickened on the floor beside
her knee and coloured his lips. She glanced up and saw Dar smile faintly
.
'Explains what?'
'All elven aether is responsive to sound,' he said. 'Do it again.'
Lila put her sticky hand over his abdomen and scanned his midsection. 'So?'
H 'It
feels good,' he said and smiled briefly. 'I thought
I dreamt it. A strange dream, to feel pleasure in
pain. But it was you.'
'Human beings don't feel anything with this.' She took her hand off, aware of her face reddening,
and angry for that.
'No,' Dar said. 'I imagine not. And I don't
feel it
in my flesh body. I feel it
in the aetheric. It is
extremely pleasant
.
The
chi
pattern is most interesting. You may find other uses for that
in the future
while you are here.'
'Are you being filthy?' she asked, selecting a needle and tapping it down through his skin with a
careful blow of her fingertip, her Al-self effective and detached.
'In the circumstances I have perhaps gone too far,' Dar admitted.
T was going to use X-ray,' Lila informed him and her prompt
was answered, after a moment
or
two and another needle
.
'I am grateful you did not,' Dar rasped
.
"The wavelengths are extremely hostile to our aetheric
selves
.
'
'So, two weapons from one med kit: X-rays and ultrasound,' she said
.
'Not
bad
.
I'm liking it
here
already.' She moved along, placing needles through his skin carefully, concentrating on his forehead,
ears and in his hands. After the sixth one he sighed and visibly relaxed
.
Colour started to return to his
face and she put her hand briefly over his chest, picking up a heart trace
.
"That's impressive,' she
said.
'Now the pain has gone I am able to look and see what
is wrong with me, except
that
your
anaesthetic has dulled my ability somewhat. But
we can proceed. I suppose you are not
a human
with magical skills?'
'You suppose correctly,' Lila said. 'I didn't
even think there were any.'
'We must make a connection,' he said, as though he hadn't
heard her. 'Something that
can unite us,